Bacteria have been found associated with a variety of ancient samples, however few studies are generally accepted due to questions about sample quality and contamination. When Cano and Borucki isolated a strain of Bacillus sphaericus from an extinct bee trapped in 25-30 million-year-old amber, careful sample selection and stringent sterilization techniques were the keys to acceptance. Here we report the isolation and growth of a previously unrecognized spore-forming bacterium (Bacillus species, designated 2-9-3) from a brine inclusion within a 250 million-year-old salt crystal from the Permian Salado Formation. Complete gene sequences of the 16S ribosomal DNA show that the organism is part of the lineage of Bacillus marismortui and Virgibacillus pantothenticus. Delicate crystal structures and sedimentary features indicate the salt has not recrystallized since formation. Samples were rejected if brine inclusions showed physical signs of possible contamination. Surfaces of salt crystal samples were sterilized with strong alkali and acid before extracting brines from inclusions. Sterilization procedures reduce the probability of contamination to less than 1 in 10(9).

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The Delaware Basin is a broad asymmetric sedimentary trough in southeastern New Mexico and west Texas. Basin subsidence occurred from the Pennsylvanian into the Triassic. The basin also underwent tilting since the early Cenozoic. Layered evaporite units of Ochoan age in the basin are 1000 m thick. These evaporites are divided into three stratigraphic units (listed in order of increasing age): the Rustler Formation, the Salado Formation, the Castile Formation. These units, especially the Castile, are deformed along portions of the margin of the Delaware Basin and in some areas internal to the basin. In the northern Delaware Basin adjacent to the WIPP site, the term "Disturbed Zone" (DZ) has been applied to an area in which deformation structures are found in boreholes and from which chaotic seismig reflection data were obtained. The origin and timing of this deformation is considered important for the determination of This docunlent is PUBLI&'L%7 RELEASABLE Authorizing Official Date: 81/31 / W O d

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New platyrrhine fossils have been recovered from early Miocene deposits near the Pinturas River in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Soriacebus ameghinorum is a saki-sized monkey with a deep V-shaped mandible, large procumbent incisors and small marmoset-like cheek teeth. Several other primate taxa are represented by dental, cranial, and post-cranial remains from the same deposits. These fossils document the presence of a phyletically and adaptively diverse fauna of primates in southernmost Argentina during the early Miocene.

In this study, we utilized transmission electron microscopy to examine the contents of fluid inclusions in halite (NaCl) and solid halite crystals collected 650 m below the surface from the Late Permian Salado Formation in southeastern New Mexico (USA). The halite has been isolated from contaminating groundwater since deposition approximately 250 Ma ago. We show that abundant cellulose microfibers are present in the halite and appear remarkably intact. The cellulose is in the form of 5 nm microfibers as well as composite ropes and mats, and was identified by resistance to 0.5 N NaOH treatment and susceptibility to cellulase enzyme treatment. These cellulose microfibers represent the oldest native biological macromolecules to have been directly isolated, examined biochemically, and visualized (without growth or replication) to date. This discovery points to cellulose as an ideal macromolecular target in the search for life on other planets in our Solar System.

Four halite beds of the Permian Rustler Formation in southeastern New Mexico thin dramatically over short lateral distances to correlative clastic (mudstone) beds. The mudstones have long been considered residues after post-burial dissolution (subrosion) of halite, assumed to have been deposited continuously across the area. Hydraulic properties of the Culebra Dolomite Member have often been related to Rustler subrosion.In cores and three shafts at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), however, these mudstones display flat bedding, graded bedding, crossbedding, erosional contacts, and channels filled with intraformational conglomerates. Cutans indicate early stages of soil development during subaerial exposure. Smeared intraclasts developed locally as halite was removed syndepositionally during subaerial exposure. We interpret these beds as facies formed in salt-pan or hypersaline-lagoon, transitional, and mudflat environments. Halite is distributed approximately as it was deposited. Breccia in limited areas along one halite margin indicates post-burial dissolution, and these breccias are key to identifying areas of subrosion.A depositional model accounts for observed sedimentary features of Rustler mudstones. Marked facies and thickness changes are consistent with influence by subsidence boundaries, as found in some modern continental evaporites. A subrosion model accounts for limited brecciated zones along (depositional) halite margins, but bedding observed in the mudstones would not survive 90% reduction in rock volume.Depositional margins for these halite beds will be useful in reconstructing detailed subsidence history of the Late Permian in the northern Delaware Basin. It also no longer is tenable to attribute large variations in Culebra transmissivity to Rustler subrosion.